ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a guide to the intricate relations between the institutional development of international human rights, the central ethical principles offered to support human rights norms, and the politics of human rights. It details the making of rights claims as performative social and political practices. The chapter shows that one should approach human rights and dignity as the achievements of generative struggles for recognition. It offers a brief account of the translation of the idea of human rights into international legal norms and political institutions, focusing on the International Bill of Human Rights. The chapter provides an analytical attention to bear upon the ethical underpinnings of international human rights, characterized in terms of the four pillars of dignity, liberty, equality, and solidarity. Finally, it offers some reflections on the ways by which rights claims are positioned, in performative terms, as emergent political struggles to achieve reciprocal recognition, equal status, and human dignity.
